For the first time last night, I heard a someone (albeit a "character" wearing a seal-skin baseball cap -- it's okay because it was made by a Greenland Inuit) assert that he wouldn't let French or German wine pass his lips. Did we have something Spanish, Italian or Australian, perhaps? Of course, de gustibus etc...But how does a government's foreign policy position reflect a winemaker's opinion, if s/he even has one? And isn't punishing an entrepreneur for the policy positions of their government, well, at least unRepublican if not somewhat unAmerican? Maybe I should reconsider my sommelier career plan (one of a few I'm wrestling with right now) if I can only sell overoaked juice.
Not much to add about the dispiriting UN deadlock over Iraq except that whatever the merits of the various parties' arguments -- war-now vs no-war-ever vs war-maybe-but-not-just-yet -- US diplomacy (an oxymoron already?) has been incredibly clumsy throughout. This goes for the handling of allies (UK in particular), just as much as of awkward opponents (Russia, China, France, Germany) and neutrals (Mexico, and so on). Letting your military schedule override all international discussions is more than short-sighted: It's like holding a conversation with your fingers jammed in your ears and your eyes shut tight -- it lacks finesse (sorry, I can' t think of an anglo-saxon synonym right now).
The President's subtle-as-a-flying-mallet introduction of regime change as an explicit war aim last week is a classic example: Washington must know this puts Blair on the spot. Blair has rested his case entirely on Iraqi disarmament. This is because waging a war for the purpose of regime change is not permitted by the UN Charter -- in case that matters.
So yeah, the Administration is transparently just going through the motions at the UN before its "inevitable" invasion and the race begins to sanitize Iraqi WMD files and lock up the evil scientists (the ones who don't want to come to work for us) and so on.
Prediction: there will likely be a price to pay later for this myopic haste, and for behavior that other nations could reasonably construe as contemptuous indifference to their concerns. Not right away, perhaps... But at some point, even if the war of '03 is a famous victory, the US might actually need the UN for some purposes -- if only to relocate Iraqi refugees, rehouse Baghdadis, repair the Shia shrines in Najaf and Karbala, or share some other expenses, material and symbolic. No? Or will US taxpayers, wallowing again in debt, joyfully assume the entire burden of the Protectorate? As Theo says: "Yeah right, dad."
Let's not even consider today how a wider regional peace in the Middle East could be facilitated by a UN role. But already one reads, for example, that the US would like to see multilateral, not one-to-one talks with N Korea. What's the incentive for other powers (China, anyone?) to join such talks, when the administration simultaneously leaks Air Force contigency plans to bomb the North's reactor? Even if it's what they want to convey, this "We're crazy, y'all better get out of the way" rhetoric is not a viable long-term global strategy. And it is time to be thinking about long-term strategies, not just mobilization schedules.
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Not much to add about the dispiriting UN deadlock over Iraq except that whatever the merits of the various parties' arguments -- war-now vs no-war-ever vs war-maybe-but-not-just-yet -- US diplomacy (an oxymoron already?) has been incredibly clumsy throughout. This goes for the handling of allies (UK in particular), just as much as of awkward opponents (Russia, China, France, Germany) and neutrals (Mexico, and so on). Letting your military schedule override all international discussions is more than short-sighted: It's like holding a conversation with your fingers jammed in your ears and your eyes shut tight -- it lacks finesse (sorry, I can' t think of an anglo-saxon synonym right now).
The President's subtle-as-a-flying-mallet introduction of regime change as an explicit war aim last week is a classic example: Washington must know this puts Blair on the spot. Blair has rested his case entirely on Iraqi disarmament. This is because waging a war for the purpose of regime change is not permitted by the UN Charter -- in case that matters.
So yeah, the Administration is transparently just going through the motions at the UN before its "inevitable" invasion and the race begins to sanitize Iraqi WMD files and lock up the evil scientists (the ones who don't want to come to work for us) and so on.
Prediction: there will likely be a price to pay later for this myopic haste, and for behavior that other nations could reasonably construe as contemptuous indifference to their concerns. Not right away, perhaps... But at some point, even if the war of '03 is a famous victory, the US might actually need the UN for some purposes -- if only to relocate Iraqi refugees, rehouse Baghdadis, repair the Shia shrines in Najaf and Karbala, or share some other expenses, material and symbolic. No? Or will US taxpayers, wallowing again in debt, joyfully assume the entire burden of the Protectorate? As Theo says: "Yeah right, dad."
Let's not even consider today how a wider regional peace in the Middle East could be facilitated by a UN role. But already one reads, for example, that the US would like to see multilateral, not one-to-one talks with N Korea. What's the incentive for other powers (China, anyone?) to join such talks, when the administration simultaneously leaks Air Force contigency plans to bomb the North's reactor? Even if it's what they want to convey, this "We're crazy, y'all better get out of the way" rhetoric is not a viable long-term global strategy. And it is time to be thinking about long-term strategies, not just mobilization schedules.
- bruno 3-08-2003 11:16 pm